Prayers of wind and smoke
by Jinxypoo
Summary: Shikamaru and Temari had a child togeather, but Temari died after the brith. Their son Tonfa's hands in a report to Iruka telling him about what he found out about his mother.


Prayers of Cigarettes and wind.

Iruka sighed, sitting down at his desk to grade some papers. It had been 17 years since Naruto had graduated from the academy and now the raining 6th Hokage. Iruka himself was getting on in years and he knew was going to have to retire at some point, though it would probably be forced.

He sipped his coffee, picking up a paper and looking at it. It was Nara Tonfas' paper, the son of Shikamaru and was much like him, including keeping on the family tradition of sleeping in class. The paper he had assigned to the class was to write about a family member, he was surprised to see anything from the brown haired boy. Tonfas didn't look like his father, but more like his mother Temari who had died years before while giving birth to the boy, though he wore something similar to Shikamaru's clothes.

Iruka took a sip of coffee and read.

_My name is Nara Tonfas, age 12. This is my report on one of my family members. _

_You are probably wondering why I am writing this report, after all, I've never done any before this one. Well the reason being this gives me a reason to research the topic which I am writing about. The family member I am talking about is my Mother Temari of the Dessert. _

_It was difficult to research seeing as it's still hard for my dad to talk about so I had to find others to ask and remember what I already knew about her. I started by writing down what I knew of her and this is what I came up with. _

_I knew what she looked like and she was very attractive. I remember the day the I first saw her. I was only 5 and I had wondered into the shrine my dad always prayed to each night. I didn't know who it was for, I just knew it smelled pretty. So one day and went up to it and opened the doors to see the wonderful white flowers and nice smelling incense and I saw her. I remember thinking that she was the prettiest lady I had ever seen and I took the photo to my dad and asked him who she was. It was the first time I had seen him cry and it will probably be the only time._

_I watched as he took it, tears welling up in his eyes and he gently touched it and then looked at me, smiling as the tears rolled down his cheeks, showing me the photo, _

_"This is your mother." He said, voice cracking a little. _

_"Mommy is pretty! Why are you crying? Did I do something bad?" I asked, blinking, but he pulled me into his arms, crying into my small chest. _

_"You didn't do anything wrong! I would never hate you no matter what." He kept on telling me this over and over as he sobbed. I was kinda scared that he was crying and I hugged his head until he stopped. That was the day I met mom. _

_I knew she came from Suna Village. I know this because Uncle Gaara gave me her headband for my 10th birthday. It was an odd gift to say the least, I mean, who gets a headband from another village, but it's the best gift I've ever gotten. It wasn't given to me at my party either, I guess Uncle Gaara didn't want Dad to get upset and it was probably under Uncle Lee's orders to give it to me afterwards. Uncle Lee smart like that, well...No brains smart, but has some common sense. That's probably better then anything really seeing as what Uncle Gaara gets himself into. But back to topic. Uncle Gaara had waited till after the party and took me to my room. He gave me a small package wrapped in silver wrapping paper, somewhat smiling as he did. _

_"This belonged to your Mother so take good care of it." He told me as I opened it. I found myself holding a black headband that had a metal plate, the serf ace Little scratched, but the hourglass like symbol still visible. I looked up at Uncle Gaara, eye's wide, "This...Was hers?" I asked and he nodded. _

_"Yeah, that was hers so keep it safe." He told me and tapped my nose. _

_I knew it was important so I've kept it safe since that day and one day, when I am a real ninja I'll wear it with my leaf head band. _

_And the finely thing I knew about her was that she had a huge fan. I found it one night when I was 11. I was bored, it was raining and Dad was sleeping on the sofa after a mission as always. Normally I would mess with him using my Shadow possession jutsu, but I wasn't really up for it that night. I hardly ever been in my Dad's room so I decided to explore it. _

_I slowly crept into the room, taking light steps as I looked around, wanting to see all of it. I hopped on the bed, feeling the soft sheets under me, he always cleaned them. I hopped off the bed and looked under it too see his slippers, he's surprisingly orderly about those kind of things and then I walked up to the closet in the wall. I opened the door to see his shirts and pants hanging up, with some women's clothing. I look at the women's clothes. There were some pretty dresses and shirts, I Even pulled my own clothes off to put on a purple Yakata with pink flowers on it and a pink obi. It was a little big, but it smelled nice, like a perfume that I had smelled before, but couldn't place. I let out an exited giggle as I looked further into the closet to find something in corner. It was a huge fan and I pulled it out. It came up to my chest and was heavy. Slowly I laid it down and opened it to see it's pattern. It was a plain cream color with three purple circles on it and the black lacquered wooden ends looked beaten up from use. I knew instantly that it was a weapon. _

_"Nara Fugi Tofas!" Said my Dad's voice and a shiver ran down my spine. He had caught me going into his room, wearing my Mother's Yakata, and looking at this huge fan. I was in trouble now. _

_"You could of ask to come in here you know." He said and I looked up at him to see a smirk on his face as he knelled by me and tugged at the yakata I had on, "I haven't seen this on anyone in years." He chuckled, "You looked pretty in purple." _

_"Hey! That's not funny! Anyways, whats with the fan?" I asked. _

_"This was your mothers weapon. She used it to fight and bend the wind to her will." He told me, a strange look in his eye's. _

_"Wow..." I muttered, eye's wide and he told me a little about it. _

_These things are all cool, but still didn't tell me much about who she was, so I decided to do some asking around and the first person I went to was Uncle Gaara and Uncle Kankuro who was visiting for the week as a visor for the Kazekage. I love it when Uncle Kankuro comes over, he always brings a gift for me. Last time he got me a puppet and taught me to move it with Chakura strings. He said I had potential as a ninja puppet master. _

_I walked up to Uncle Gaara's house, a note book and pencil in hand, wanting to get notes on this and my heart was thumping. I lightly knocked on his door to be met by the always smiling Uncle Lee. _

_"Hello Tonfas-kun. Gaara-san isn't home. He is meeting Kankuro-san at the village gates." He told me with a smile. _

_"Can I wait here for them Lee-sama? I need to ask them both something for my report." _

_"Why sure. Do you want some tea?" He led me into the kitchen and made me some tea. Uncle Lee is nice like that you know and a good cook. I always though Uncle Gaara was lucky to have him around. I was nibbling on a cookie when Uncle Gaara and Uncle Kankuro walked in, both silence as always. _

_Uncle Kankuro smiled at me, pulling into a hug, "Tonfas! How are you?" He asked, grinning. _

_"I'm good! How are you? Trip long?" _

_"I'm fine, just a little tiered from my trip." He told me, smiling. _

_"I hope your not too tiered to answer some questions. I have to do a report on a family member." _

_"So I'm your topic?" He asked, grinning. _

_"No...Mom is." I muttered and he went quiet. Uncle Gaara was the first to talk. _

_"What do you want to know?" _

_"Everything! Who was she? How did she meet Dad? Was she nice?" I asked these questions and many more. _

_"I think me and Kankuro should start at our childhood."_

_I will cut the story down a bit, for it's long and I don't want to write it all. _

_When my Uncle Gaara was born, he was born with a demon inside him and because of that, it killed his mother. He was born this way as a weapon, his mother used as a sacrfice, and he was raised as the wepon he was born to be, spoiled rotten. His father filled him with forbidden jutsu that would make the first hokage roll in his grave. Back then my Mother hated him for killing her Mother, for being a monster, but was always waching him from far away. Both her and Uncle Kankuro wached Uncle Gaara's from a distance and Uncle Gaara, evan though he didn't let on, knew that they were. But the day my Mom would aproch Uncle Gaara, would be one night when they came to Konoha for the chunin test, the first thunder storm Uncle Gaara was in. Mother had walked into the apartment they were staying in, after buying some food, to hear some whimpering and found Uncle Gaara under a table. She kneeled down by the table, looking at the shaking red head. _

_"Your scared?" She asked and only got a whimper when the thunder rolled. She sighed, digging into a brown bag and pulled out some pocky, "Look Gaara-san, pocky." she shook the box lightly, but her curled up more. _

_She sighed, crawling under the table and pulled into her arms. She softly sang a lullby that their mother sang to her when she was a baby. Slowly Uncle Gaara calmed down and since that day, he saw her as a Mother like figure. _

_They also told me how my parents met. Opnets in the Chunin test, they fought eachother and said to be the best fight in the almost thrid round of that test that year, but it was distrupted by Orochimaru. We all know how that ended. _

_After talking to my uncles I understood her a bit more. She was caring and gentle, but I still had some gaps to fill, so I went to see Auntie Ino. She always liked to talk and answered anything I asked. So I asked her about my Mom and did she talk! She told me that My Mom was a fighter, a fluirt, and very wild. Seems my Mother was very energetic and when she fought, she fought with all her being. So diffrent my lazy Dad, she was probaly the zip in his step when she was alive or maybe he was always lazy. _

_I asked around about her and got mostly what Ino said, a spunky, firey woman, who hit like a man. Everyone that is, intill I came to Auntie Sakura. She was there when I was born, the night that Mother died. She told me that it was raining, the wind blowing hard outside as she was inside, screeming up a storm herself. As soon Sakura checked my Mother she knew something was wrong. The doctors tryed as hard as they could to save my mother, wanting to try cutting her open and pulling me out that way, but it was too late. She gave brith to me, squeesing my fathers hand so tight, she poped his pinky out of place and the Doctors had to push back in again after words. In that moment, just before she died, and she knew she was going to die, my mother told him something, something so important. She looked up at him through tears and said, "Tonfas...My little Tonfas...Take care of Tonfas." and then she was gone, dead in his hands. He cryed hard as he held me, my wailing as loud as his and Auntie told me I was his everything after that. I was the wonderful tragity as she put it. _

_Sure it sounded bad, but it ment something more to me when she said it. I was my Dad's world now and it made me feel...Feel so important. Even if I'm not improtant to anyone else, I am important to my Dad. That is probaly why I pray so hard when he go's on missions. _

_I once asked my Dad why he smoked and he told me for his sensei. He told me all about Asuma-san, his sensei. How he taught him, how they played shogi, and finaly how he died. He took up smoking shortly after in his memory. A few day's after that I found Asuma-san's grave and since then I've gone to his grave when my Dad go's on missions, with an offering and a ciggrett. I pray to him to look over my father on his missions, to help him come home alive, but now I pray to two people now. I pray to her too when I got to Asuma-san's grave by lighting her favorte incence and letting it flutter away in the wind, carring my prayre with it, to bring Dad home and keep him safe. _

_I pray to ciggrets and wind. _

Naruto walked into Iruka's class room, finaly alowed to take a break from his work, "Iruka-sensei! I am free now! Lets get some ramen!" He yelled in his usall bouncy manner that had never changed through out the years and he stoped, seeing his sensei crying.

"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto asked and the brunett handed him the report he was reading. Iruka didn't know why he was so caught up by it, maybe it was that fact that he prayed to his parents and the 4th Hokage to keep Naruto safe on his missions or if it was the fact that he had saw a little of himself in that report, or maybe it was both of those resons, he didn't know.

Gaara was babysitting Tonfas, Shikamru on a mission. He blinked, looking up to see Tonfas walking out the door with a plate of dumplings, ciggrett in one hand and incence in the other. He sighed and got up to follow the boy.

Soon he found himself in a graveyard and wached as Tonfas set the plate down infront of a headstone that said 'Sarutobi Asuma'. Tonfas sighed, putting the incence in a holder and pulled a lighter out, lighting the incence and the ciggret, placing it on the headstone, leting both aroma to fill his nose, mixing into the smell of his fathers clothes. Slowly her clasped his hands and said his prayre to his Mother and Asuma, whishing for his Father to come home as fast as he could.

Gaara smiled slightly and looked into the sky, gentle breez ruffling his hair, "Temari-onee-chan...He is so much like you..." He muttered, smilling, "So much like you." and with that, Gaara made his own silent prayre to ciggretts and wind.


End file.
